My Park Story: Ameen Asbahi

Ameen and his coworker conduct plot measurements by sticking flags into the ground to indicate where each subplot is

Courtesy of Ameen Asbahi

Flashback to March 2023. I remember weighing potential internship options for the summer. I had applied to some corporate sustainability internships and other positions. I had just heard back from Environment for the Americas (EFTA) and was offered my top park choice. In front of me was the opportunity to spend my summer living and doing research on the base of the glacial-mountain behemoth of Mount Rainier National Park. All it took was a few more searches of the park on the internet, and I accepted the position. I can work in the corporate world all my life, but I only have a few years where I can spend an entire summer in a national park.

Ameen uses hand lens, a tool used to magnify the herbaceous cover he was studying. A hand lens is needed to identify the intricate structures in a plant that are not visible to the naked eye and is critical for differentiating between similar-looking species.

Courtesy of Ameen Asbahi

Fast-forward to late July and I am hiking at 5,000 feet with my two coworkers in the field. I watch my steps carefully to not step on flowers, but to no avail - they are just everywhere. I am completely immersed, off trail, in the vibrant mosaic of one of Mount Rainier National Park’s many sub-alpine wildflower meadows. I am from Illinois and have never seen flowers like that in my life. I was the Biology Vegetation Assistant intern, and my research was part of the long-term monitoring project with the North Coast and Cascades Inventory and Monitoring Network to monitor which herbaceous layer species are present at these high-elevation meadows, and how they may be changing over-time. It meant that I could spend a field-season hiking completely off-trail in one of the most beautiful places in the United States.

I was also part of an amazing team and a really positive work environment. Shout-out to the vegetation crew – plant people are the best! I was given a lot of freedom to pursue technical skill development, such as developing grant proposal ideas. My co-workers also provided amazing mentorship that has really impacted what I am pursuing now, as a senior at the University of Michigan. Thanks to my experiences last summer, I took a public speaking class inspired by my research presentation I was required to give in Washington, D.C. I am also taking another ArcGIS (GIS software) class because of how useful I realized it was for our research last summer.

Ameen and his coworker hiking in Mount Rainier National Park

Courtesy of Ameen Asbahi

Now, as a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, I am interested in the intersection of business and ecology, particularly, building green real-estate projects by finding low-cost nature-based solutions to climate change. In fact, I am also building my own business, and a large portion of the confidence required to do so was inspired by my work last summer. I love all sorts of concepts from circular waste systems to financing conservation more broadly. My internship with EFTA provided valuable insight into the role of national parks in the conservation movement, the incredible value they add, and some challenges they face under-the-curtain. Overall, the experience was invaluable from both a professional-development perspective and was such a unique life experience. I am really grateful to have been given the opportunity.

Right now I am in Amman, Jordan, taking Arabic classes for the summer in Modern Standard Arabic and the Levantine dialect. After this summer, I plan on studying regenerative agriculture at the Permaculture Research Institute at Zaytuna Farms in Australia. At the University of Michigan, I have also been learning more and more about entrepreneurship and plan to start my own business in the regenerative agriculture space.

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